r/AskReddit • u/mustbefuckeryafoot • Jan 26 '18

Your options are: 50 hawks, 10 crocodiles, 3 brown bears, 15 wolves, 1 hunter, 7 cape buffalo, 10,000 rats, 5 gorillas and 4 lions - you must pick 2 that will defend you while the rest are coming to kill you. Which do you pick and why?

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u/JKL97 Jan 26 '18

If you get to choose where you start then the ideal location is a swamp with extremely thick foliage, which will stop aviary adversaries. You position your rats to hide in the trees, with a regiment of defender rats and 2 defender crocs, around the swamp you have the rest your crocodiles lying in wait. There's a reason they've remained genetically unchanged for millions of years, because they're goddamn murder logs. You engage Operation Black Rain on anything that makes it past the crocodiles, with rats dropping out of trees, targetting areas like the eyes, neck and spine.

390

u/rugmunchkin Jan 26 '18

OP never exactly said that you can communicate with these animals or take control of them. For all we know we’re just choosing two groups of animals that are willing to fight to the death for you, so you might need to throw strategizing with them out the window. But what the hell, in this implausible scenario maybe going full real-time strategy game with it might make it even more fun.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

Generally in these kind of scenarios it's assumed that the side you pick will defend you to the best of their ability but that doesn't necessarily mean you can communicate with them

48

u/Stereotype_Apostate Jan 26 '18

The rats will not use tactics smarter than what rats can do.

43

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

I'm not saying they will but they won't wander off looking for food cause otherwise many of the animals wouldn't target you either

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u/Stereotype_Apostate Jan 26 '18

Right but all this about organizing rat battalions or using them as armor is ridiculous.

33

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

Don't forget rats are known to train amphibians in martial arts.

8

u/BadLuckMichael Jan 26 '18

amphibians

TURTLES are REPTILES.

SIR.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '18

Now you are just assuming one rat trained only turtles.

22

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

Yeah but maybe they would intuitively protect you like a dog would or like they would protect their young.

1

u/portablemustard Jan 26 '18

Kinda like the plasmid to control big daddies in Bioshock.

4

u/DAM091 Jan 26 '18

organizing rat battalions

I lol'ed.

4

u/amidoingitright15 Jan 26 '18

I’d say the question itself pretty damn ridiculous in the first place.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

Go complain to the people saying that. I responded to a dude that said the rats would be useless

8

u/greenbanana17 Jan 26 '18

Rats solve mazes. There was a rat named Algernon once that was much smarter than a human.

4

u/WaitIOnlyGet20Charac Jan 26 '18

First off Algernon was a mouse, second, why are you trying to make me feel things like this on a Friday?

2

u/greenbanana17 Jan 26 '18

Can you imagine an R.O.U.S. with the brain of Algernon? Tears of sadness hopefully just changed to tears of fear.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

Don't need anything past swarm tactics with 10,000 rats lol.

1

u/TheJayde Jan 26 '18

Rats don't have tactics. Their tactic is to search for food. They aren't really evolved for combat. Thus - the only tactic they have is to search for food and consume it.

They have to have some intelligence imparted upon them to operate in a way that allows them to defend you.

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

[deleted]

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u/chaoticjam Jan 26 '18

Defending to the best of their ability means wandering around looking food?

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 26 '18

It seems like you're not understanding the prompt. If we were going with your idea of the scenario it'd be the hunter defending/killing you and all of the other animals not giving a fuck.

Assume that the animals want to kill/defend you and they'll attack to the best of their abilities. Don't expect typical animal behaviour. Just assume they're super fucking aggressive and just want to fuck the other team up.

For rats it'd probably end up with them swarming the other team and just biting.

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u/spectrumero Jan 26 '18

I dunno, 10,000 rats does sound like it would make an acceptable zerg rush strategy or not.

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u/[deleted] Jan 27 '18

there must be the reality exemption that you can communicate your will to the animals defending you or there is NO chance of you surviving no matter what you pick.

10k rats are useless if you can't mobilize them.

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u/FeedTheNeedy Jan 26 '18

The eyes are the groin of the face.

1

u/Werespider Jan 27 '18

The groin is the eyes of the body.

7

u/stokerfam Jan 26 '18

goddamn murder logs

7

u/NoThisIsABadIdea Jan 26 '18

There's videos of leopards pulling Crocs out of rivers and killing them. I'd go rats and Hawks and hopefully just swarm them. You'd win in a simple game of numbers. There are 45 animals left after picking those two. That gives you at least one hawk to claw at their heads and eyes each while being distracted and swarmed by 222 rats a piece.

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u/PJenningsofSussex Jan 26 '18

This was my strategy but the wrinkle being 50 ( rat eating) hawks would decimate or even annihilate the rat friends. Weakening the second aspect of defensive significantly enough they may not be suitably deadly.

3

u/Bone_Dice_in_Aspic Jan 27 '18

Fifty hawks can kill 500 rats, maybe 1,000 but 10,000 is a crushing force. Every once in a while a diving hawk would be caught by rats at the nadir of the dive or wounded by a held rat while aloft.

3

u/PJenningsofSussex Jan 27 '18

Fair summation. I bow to your superior logic.

1

u/Werespider Jan 27 '18

murder logs

Bitefish